Contents

Armenian
Kingdom

Tournebize holds that Assyrians
deported Jews
directly to Armenia, and not
to the Khabur valley. Aslan mentions that Jews of Samaria were
deported to Armenia.

A large Jewish population was settled in Armenia from the 1st
century BC. One of the cities, Vartkesavan became an important
commercial center.[1]Tigranes the
Great retreated from Israel and encouraged 10,000 Jews to join him on his return to his kingdom.
Thus, Armenia's Jewish community was established. Like the rest of
Armenia's population, they suffered the consequences of regional
powers trying to divide and conquer the country.[2]

In 1999 the remains of a medieval cemetery from a previously
unknown and unsuspected medieval Jewish community was discovered in
the village of Yeghegis in
Armenia's Vayotz Dzor region. When
excavated, 64 complete tombstones and fragments of a number of
others were uncovered. 20 of them had inscriptions, all in Hebrew
except for 2 which were in Aramaic. The oldest dated stone was from
1266 and the latest date was 1336/7. [5]

Armenian
SSR

After Eastern Armenia came under Russian rule in the early 19th century, Jews
began arriving from Poland and
Iran, creating Ashkenazic and Mizrahi communities
in Yerevan. More Jews moved
to Armenia during its period as a Soviet republic
finding more tolerance in the area than in Russia or Ukraine. After World War II, the Jewish population rose
to approximately 5,000. However, with the dissolution of the Soviet
Union many have left due to inadequate services and today the
country's Jewish population has shrunk to 750. Despite small
numbers, a high intermarriage rate, and relative isolation, a great
deal of enthusiasm exists to help the community meet its needs.[2]

Antisemitism in Armenia

Although the contemporary relations between Israel and Armenia are normally good, some anti-Jewish
sentiments are still present.

In April 1998, Igor Muradyan, a
famous Armenian political analyst and economist, published an
anti-semitic article in one of Armenia's leading newspapers
Voice of Armenia. Muradyan claimed that the history of
Armenian-Jewish relations has been filled with "Aryans vs. Semites"
conflict manifestations. He accused Jews of inciting ethnic
conflicts, including the dispute over Nagorno-Karabagh
and demonstrated concern for Armenia's safety in light of Israel's
good relations with Turkey.[7]

In 2002, a book entitled
National System (written by Romen Yepiskoposyan in Armenian
and Russian) was printed and presented at
the Union of
Writers of Armenia. In that book, Jews (along with Turks) are
identified as number-one enemies of Armenians and are described as
"the nation-destroyer with a mission of destruction and
decomposition." A section in the book entitled The Greatest
Falsification of the 20th Century denies the Holocaust, claiming that it is a myth
created by Zionists to discredit "Aryans": "The
greatest falsification in human history is the myth of
Holocaust. <...> no one was killed in gas chambers.
There were no gas chambers."[8] A
speaker at the event also suggested the book should be distributed
in schools in order to "develop a national idea and understanding
of history." The event was marked with public accusations that Jews
were responsible for the Armenian Genocide.

Similar accusations were voiced by Armen Avetissian,
the leader of the nationalist Armenian Aryan
Order (AAO), on 11 February 2002, when he also called for the
Israeli ambassador Rivka Kohen to be declared persona non grata in
Armenia for Israel's refusal to give the Armenian massacres of 1915
equal status with the Holocaust. In addition, he asserted that the
number of victims of the Holocaust has been overstated.[9]

In 2004, Armen Avetissian
expressed extremist remarks against Jews in several issues of the
AAO run The Armeno-Aryan newspaper, as well as during a
number of meetings and press conferences. As a result, his party
was excluded from the Armenian Nationalist Front.[10]

Shortly after, during a prime time talk show, the leader of the
People's Party of Armenia and
the owner of ALM television channel, Tigran Karapetyan,
accused Jews of assisting Ottoman authorities in the 1915 Armenian
Genocide. His interviewee, Armen Avetissian stated that "the
Armenian Aryans intend to fight against the Jewish-Masonic aggression and will
do what it takes to repress evil in its own nest." Speaking about
Armenia's Jewish community Avetissian said that it consists of "700
of those who identify themselves as Jews and 50,000 of those whom
the Aryans will soon reveal while cleansing the country of Jewish
evil." The Jewish Council of Armenia addressed its concerns to the
government and various human rights organizations demanding to stop
promoting ethnic hatred and to ban ALM. However these
demands were mostly disregarded.[10]

On 23 October 2004, head of the Department for Ethnic and
Religious Minority Issues, Hranoush Kharatyan, publicly commented
on so-called "Judaist" xenophobia in Armenia. She said: "Why are we
not responding to the fact that on their Friday gatherings,
Judaists continue to advocate hatred towards all non-Judaists as
far as comparing the latter to cattle and propagating spitting on
them?"[10]
Kharatyan also accused local Jews of calling for "anti-Christian
actions."[11]

The Jewish Council of Armenia sent an open letter to President
Robert Kocharian expressing its deep
concern with the recent rise of antisemitism. Armen Avetissian
responded to this by publishing yet another antisemitic article in
the Iravunq newspaper, where he stated: "Any country that
has a Jewish minority is under big threat in terms of stability."
Later while meeting with Chairman of the National Assembly of
ArmeniaArtur Baghdasarian, head of the
Jewish Council of Armenia Rimma Varzhapetian insisted that the
government took steps to prevent further acts of antisemitism.
Avetissian was eventually arrested on 24 January 2005, however
several prominent academic figures, such as Levon Ananyan (the
head of the Writers union
of Armenia) and composer Ruben Hakhverdian, supported
Avetissian and called upon the authorities to release him.[12] In
their demands to release him, they were joined by opposition
deputies and even ombudsman Larisa Alaverdyan as the
authorities had arrested him for political speech.[13]

In September 2006, while
criticizing the American Global Gold corporation, Armenian
Minister of Nature Protection Vardan Ayvazyan said during a
press-conference: "Do you know who you are defending? You are
defending kikes! Go over their [company headquarters] and find out
who is behind this company and if we should let them come
here!"[14][15]
.After Rimma Varzhapetian's protests, Aivazian claimed he didn't
mean to offend Jews, and that such criticism was intended strictly
for the Global Gold company.

Recent vandalism by unknown individuals on Jewish Holocaust Memorial
in central Yerevan was witnessed in one of the central parks of
Armenian capital on 23 December 2007. A Naziswastika symbol was scratched and black paint
was splattered on the simple stone. After notifying the local
police, Rabbi Gershon Burshtein,
a Chabad emissary who serves
as Chief Rabbi of the country's tiny Jewish community said "I
just visited the memorial the other day and everything was fine.
This is terrible, as there are excellent relations between Jews and
Armenians." The monument has been defaced and toppled several
times in the past few years. It is located in the city's Aragast
Park, a few blocks north of the centrally-located Republic Square,
which is home to a number of government buildings.[16]